Wednesday

Palm Beach County’s health director worked to calm school board members’ concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, saying that voting at school campuses and student travel during spring break would not pose significant health concerns.

Dr. Alina Alonso told board members Wednesday that the county had "zero confirmed cases" of coronavirus as of the latest report but that new cases statewide were a virtual certainty.

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Still, the longtime county health department director maintained there was a "low risk" of any given person being infected, and that people need not drastically curtail their activities so long as they take proper precautions.

"I want people most of all to stay calm," she said. "Fear is our worst problem. People get scared and then they do things that they wouldn’t normally do."

Asked by a board member whether students should be temporarily barred from returning to school if they travel to countries with significant coronavirus outbreaks, Alonso said no such policy was necessary.

People who meet the criteria for self-isolation after traveling will be instructed to so at the airport, and the county health department will be tracking all individuals in the area required to do so.

"I expect that to be a very smooth process," she said.

Thousands of adults will be crowding onto public school campuses March 17 to vote in the presidential primary and in municipal elections.

But because no students will be on campus that day and the coronavirus is primarily transmitted by person-to-person contact, Alonso said the risk to students was not significant.

"I certainly hope that every single person that’s hearing this is going to vote," she said.

Schools Superintendent Donald Fennoy said that he has not yet canceled any field trips over coronavirus concerns but that the issue "is on our radar."

Several schools have field trips planned to other states this month, including elementary schools’ annual safety patrol trips to Washington, D.C., the district said.

One high school, Boca Raton High, has a scheduled field trip to Iceland in late March.

Though all are still scheduled, "I reserve the right to cancel any single field trip up until the day of the trip," Fennoy said.

Alonso said that the health department is not likely to ask the school board to close a particular school.

But she said that district officials should consider deciding ahead of time if a certain number of infected teachers or students ought to trigger closure.

"There will be more people getting sick," she said. "That is to be expected."